Our View: Fed up with high property taxes? Speak up

Wednesday

Sep 25, 2013 at 12:01 AMSep 25, 2013 at 3:48 PM

Most of us went into sticker shock when we opened our property tax bills. We pay THAT much for THIS house in THIS city? By the time our blood pressures returned to normal, it was too late to have an effect on that bill.

Adam J. Kradle

Most of us went into sticker shock when we opened our property tax bills. We pay THAT much for THIS house in THIS city? By the time our blood pressures returned to normal, it was too late to have an effect on that bill.

You can protest your assessment, but the key to lowering your tax bill is to attend a meeting of a taxing body when it gets ready to set its levy.

The levy is the amount of property taxes a local government or school district wants to collect. Those government entities usually want more of your money. They have to pay employees, pick up health insurance and other stuff with your tax dollars.

Those levies are set at meetings anywhere from late September to December. State law requires each taxing body to submit the levy to the county clerk by the last Tuesday in December. This year, that’s Dec. 31. Boards can make their property tax request anytime until then.

Your tax bill can stay level, even if the levy rises, if the value of new construction offsets the requested increase. That hasn’t been happening in northern Illinois.

The meetings where levies are set tend to be sparsely attended by the public. Most people don’t understand the process well enough to speak up when it can make a difference. They get too caught up in tax rates rather than levies. The county clerk’s office typically calculates the tax rates in April after it has received levy requests from all taxing bodies and assessment challenges have been heard by the Board of Review in each county.

Stephenson County has 94 units of government — from cities and schools to libraries and fire protection districts — that tax property owners. Last year, 66 districts raised their tax levies.

It didn’t matter that property values declined in 70 of the 94 districts. Those 66 units of government thought they needed more revenue — i.e., more of your tax dollars — to deliver the services the public demands.

You may wonder how this can happen when Stephenson County is under tax caps. The Property Tax Extension Limitation Law, commonly referred to as tax caps, limits taxing entities to increases of 5 percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower. This year the rate of inflation is 1.7 percent.

The law went into effect when the housing market was booming and was meant to slow tax increases. No one foresaw a time when property values would decline and the law could be used to raise taxes, yet that’s what happened.

No one can attend the meetings of all the units of government in the county, but you can choose which entity you think needs to hold the line on taxes.

Some increases may be justified. Schools take most of our property tax dollars, but the money spent there is an investment in the future. If you think it’s a worthy investment say so; if not, speak out.

Governments that held the line on taxes should be given credit. The city of Freeport, for example, held the line on its levy. However, because many people fail to distinguish between taxing entities, the city tends to get blamed for rising taxes even when it controls its own spending.

The tax process is complicated, but most property owners only care about what they will have to pay. If you think it’s too much, now’s the time to speak up.